


Saudade: A Love Millions Would Dream of

by saiansha



Series: Scandalised [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Creepy Loki (Marvel), Eventual Smut, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Past Relationship(s), Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Romance, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-02-15 22:33:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18678682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiansha/pseuds/saiansha
Summary: ENDGAME SPOILERSSaudade, Portuguese (n): A feeling of deep melancholy and longing for someone or something long gone, yet continuing to dream about its return.While everyone else rejoices at the return of their loved ones, you continue to pine for Loki who had died at the hands of Thanos five years ago. But then, the Loki from the past, having stolen the Tesseract once more, ends up at your doorstep. Will you still love the Loki who is not your Loki? Will he be able to understand your love for him? Or are you both doomed to forever longing for something that once happened, or could have happened, but would never come true?An AU sequel to my ongoing fic,A Job Million PRs Would Die for, featuring the Reader nicknamed therein as Scandal.





	1. The Departure

**Author's Note:**

> I literally got this idea three hours after I had watched Endgame. The angst is heavy with this one, so be warned.
> 
> Please note, this is not THE sequel to JMPWD. This is only A sequel. JMPWD will end on a happy note where Infinity War never happened. This fic is merely a "what if JMPWD ended on a canon-compliant note?" Will this be a second chance of sorts? Yes. Will this be a fix-it? Not exactly.
> 
> You do not need to read JMPWD (although I'd love if you did!) though you'll understand the significance of certain scenes better if you did. 
> 
> Also, shoutout to DevilishDoll for hearing me talk about the idea and helping me fine tune it! I love you <3
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Two wreaths were lowered in the water. One, carrying a metallic discus. The other, carrying a white ledger. The discus had on it engraved ‘Proof that Tony Stark has a heart.’ The text in the ledger was all written in black ink. The top of every page read, ‘There was once red in this ledger. Now it has all been wiped out’ and the pages themselves were full of messages from the people whose lives Natasha Romanoff had made better. The scene steadily turned blurry, until I realised I was crying. I cried for the man who had been more than just a mentor, the man who had been like a father. I cried for the woman who had helped train me, who had been the only one to not judge me.

It had been a long time since I had last cried. I had wept endlessly after I had learned Loki had died, but the Decimation had numbed the pain. We had all been in the same boat. When it had tipped over, there had been no choice but to swim. There were still times, though, that I wish I had drowned.

Like right now, when everyone had got back everything – or at least had got condolences for the ones they had lost. Tony, Natasha, Vision, that woman called Gamora.

But not Loki.

It wasn’t fair of me to expect any, I knew. Even though he had somewhat made up for his crimes and entered into an uneasy, but stable truce with them, he had never won the love of the Avengers. They probably didn’t know that as the protector of the Nine Realms, he had worked to hide the Infinity Stones. That he had given up the Tesseract only to save his brother. Or, they probably knew but didn’t understand the significance of it. After all, he wasn’t the only one who had made sacrifices and heroic gestures that day. 

Yet, it hurt. Even after five years, even after having accepted his death and moved on, even after having shed my last tear for him, it hurt. Even though I had spent more time without him than with him by now, it hurt.

“Sister,” said someone from behind me. If the voice wasn’t clue enough, the moniker was, for there was only one person who insisted on calling me that.

I wiped my tears before I turned around. “Thor,” I acknowledged.

I had studied him from inside the house, while Pepper was making arrangements and I was trying my best to console Morgan. Those rippled muscles and abs of steel that had never failed to make me flush had long since gone. Yet, he looked well. There was no drunken bleariness, no listlessness or ennui anymore.

“You look good,” I commented.

He tipped his head. That was when I noticed a… raccoon sitting on his right shoulder. I stared at it quizzically, trying to make out what was going on. To my amazement, it rolled its eyes. My amazement only grew when it spoke:

“What? Never seen a talking raccoon before?”

I stiffened, my eyes bulging in alarm. It took a few seconds for me to find my tongue. “I – um – no, not really.”

“Well,” it – he? – sighed, “at least you didn’t completely freak out.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stare.”

“Yes, you did.”

My lips twitched. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

The raccoon shrugged. “Yeah, guess you didn’t.” It extended his paw and said, “I’m Rocket.”

I tentatively extended my hand and marvelled when he clasped three of my fingers with a surprising amount of strength and shook them. “How do I refer to you? As ‘he?’”

“What else would you call me?” Rocket barked. “’It?’”

My eyes widened again in alarm. “No, no, of course not. Nice to meet you, Rocket.”

“Gotta say, you look pretty chill for someone who’s the Goddess of Death,” he commented.

“What?”

“Sister. He called you ‘sister,’ didn’t he?” Rocket asked, his tail lightly thwacking the back of Thor’s head. “He told me his sister was the Goddess of Death.”

Thor cleared his throat. “She’s not… she’s not _that_ sister.”

My eyes flicked to Thors’. There it was, the elephant in the room. Thor looked back at me with equal parts discomfiture, sorrow and shame. I do not know how I looked at him.

“We avenged him,” he said softly, in a voice so uncharacteristic of his rough appearance.

His words echoed in my head, bouncing around in my skull till they lost all meaning. I looked everywhere, as if trying to search for the meaning of those three words. I could not find it. My brain could not come up with anything to say, but my tongue took over. “Where is he?”

His eyes narrowed in confusion. “My lady?”

“Where is he?” I repeated, as if saying it a second time, or a third time, would make more sense. “ _Where is he?"_

“He is –”

“Gone,” I finished. “He is gone.”

His eyes became more guarded. “Yes, he is.”

“Do I care?”

“I –”

“Do I care you have _avenged_ him? Do I look as if I care?” I asked, deathly calm. “I don’t want him avenged. I want him here. I want him to be recognised. I want him –”

“Hey, hey, hey,” a man came over and pulled me into his arms before I could complete my rant.

I didn’t even think of protesting and clutched on to his suit lapels, while he stroked my back and shushed me. I detached myself a few seconds later and looked up. It was Clint.

“Hey, buddy,” he said softly.

“Hey, Clint,” I smiled weakly.

“You’ve got snot on your upper lip.”

I let out a half-laugh, half-sob and rummaged in my purse for a handkerchief. Clint stopped me and held out a dark handkerchief of his own. 

“Well, go on,” he nudged. “I brought plenty for all the manly tears that were going to be shed, but tears are tears. It’s a funeral. People tend to get upset.”

I laughed more cheerily this time and took the handkerchief and wiped my tears.

“Come on,” he said softly. “The barbecue’s going to be up in a few. Don’t want you missing out on that.”

“That’s the most ‘dad’ thing you’ve ever said to me.”

He grinned. “It’s true, though.” 

I turned to look at Thor, already regretting ranting at him. We’d done enough of that these past five years. There wasn’t any need for it today.

“You know,” Rocket said, his tone gentler, “I get that you’re upset, but there are others too who’ve lost their loved ones permanently. Take Quill, for instance,” he jerked his head towards one of the attendees, “He lost the version of the girl he loved. There is another version alive today, but she doesn’t love him. She had never even met him, till a few weeks ago. I’d say that being in love with someone who used to be everything to you, but now doesn’t even know your name, and having to look at them constantly and wonder if you could ever win them over again, is rather shitty too.”

He was right. He was so very right. I didn’t know Quill well, and I had only heard of Gamora’s name, but indeed, he was right. And yet, yet…

“You are right,” I said quietly. I looked at Thor tentatively. “Would you like to meet Morgan?”

He took my olive branch. “She is your – how do you say it? – goddaughter, yes?”

“Yup,” I beamed, clutching on to the one thing that never ceased making me happy, “and she’d love to meet you. And you too, Rocket.”

Thor smiled for the first time today… perhaps the first time in years. “I would love to meet her as well. And, you are her…?”

“Godmother,” I supplied, smiling even wider.

Thor’s smile widened as well. “Well, then, you are as much a goddess in name now as you are by association.”

My smile froze. Thor had always made it a point to remind me that through my association with Loki, I was related to him as well. That was why he insisted on addressing me as ‘sister.’ That was why he often likened me to a goddess, because I loved and had been loved by a god. Back when Loki was still alive, these monikers and gestures had never failed to make me smile and giggle from the happy, warm feeling inside my heart. But over these past five years, they had only inspired cold resentment.

Thor would try to clutch on to me because I was the only person even remotely resembling a family that he still had left. Perhaps I should have let him. Perhaps I should have clutched for him too. It certainly would’ve been healthier for the both of us. But I was never able to, for deep, deep down, no matter how hard I tried to deny it, how hard I tried to bury it, how much I loathed myself for ever thinking it, I resented Thor for being the brother who was still alive. And even today, especially today, I would have gladly let Thor be sacrificed if it meant I could’ve got my love back.

“If you will follow me,” I said with practiced politeness, “I will make you some tea.”

I spent the afternoon helping Pepper around the house and watching over Morgan. The child had never been as much of a chatterbox as her father, but seeing her so quiet was especially distressing. It was nice to finally meet with Clint’s family. I caught up with Steve and Bruce and they, in turn, introduced me to the other members of the team. I also got to meet the famous Peter Parker, the boy Tony had always referred to as the brother he’d have liked Morgan to have. I stayed well into the evening, helping Pepper clean up everything. She asked me if I’d like to stay for dinner, but I declined, sensing she was asking only to be polite.

I returned to my home, expecting to enter a pitch black house, since no one was waiting for me. Instead, one of the lamps in the living room was on, casting most of the house in a dim yellow light. By the bureau on the other side of the room stood a man. There was something strangely familiar about him, yet I could not place him. He was tall and sharply dressed in armour. He was facing me, taking me in as I was taking him in. Was his heart pounding inside his ribcage too, I thought dazedly. Mine was.

Despite the stiffness with which he held himself, I could tell he was injured. He stood like a wounded lion, cautious and analysing, yet ready to attack given the slightest provocation. It was then that I noticed that he was holding a photo frame.

I had memorised every detail in that photo. I knew, not just by the photo frames but merely by the back of the frames or even their positions, the minutest detail of all the photos in the house. This photo in question, the one being held by the man in front of me, had been taken seven years ago. I had been admiring the fireflies on Alfheim, which resembled hollow spheres of light more than glowing bugs. Unbeknown to me, one had landed on the crown of my head. Loki had never really taken to photography, but something in that moment had struck him deeply enough to come up behind me, pull me closer into his embrace till my back was flush against his chest, my head leaning back towards his, and magicked my camera to snap a photo of us like that, with him beaming into the camera and me caught halfway between looking at the camera and at the firefly still on my head. 

As my eyes trailed away from the photo to the man holding them, the penny dropped. No wonder he had looked so familiar. No wonder he stood the way he stood right now. No wonder my heart pounded so hard. My knees buckled and my chest heaved. My purse fell to the floor with a clunk. My vision swam, blurring once more with tears.

“Loki?”

No, it had to be a hallucination. Another dream, another fragment of wishful thinking, back to haunt me because of all the wounds that I’d scratched today. It was just a trick of the subconscious, nothing more.

But did hallucinations carefully put photos back where they belonged? Did they survey you and wring their hands? Did they look at you with so many complex emotions?

“Loki?”

His lips parted and closed, as if unsure what to say. He was thinking on his feet. That same calculating look that I’d grown to love was on his face. He was processing. But I had already decided what I was going to do.

“Loki!” I cried and with shaking knees and heaving breaths I ran to him. I took two, maybe three steps, before something green flashed and I blacked out.


	2. The Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki uses the Tesseract and tries to make sense of the strange Midgardian dwelling he finds himself in. Read this chapter on [Tumblr](https://saiansha.tumblr.com/post/184836752652/saudade-a-love-millions-would-dream-of-endgame).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I'm on a roll. Don't get used to it, because once graduation strikes, jet lag hits and summer begins, I'll be struggling to make even one update. 
> 
> This chapter is from Loki's POV. I will be alternating between the POV's in the story. Every odd chapter will be Scandal's, and all the even ones will be Loki's. The chapter titles will be an inversion of each other. The first was titled 'The Departure' as it was primarily about the funeral and saying goodbye, so this one is called 'The Arrival,' since it is about Loki's arrival.

One moment, I was chained and muzzled. By a curious turn of events, Stark had collapsed and Thor was tending to him. Two other guards, one of them whose profile looked uncannily similar to Stark’s, were running in the opposite direction. The next, I was escaping.

It gave me as much pleasure as pain to touch the accursed Cube again. Pleasure, for the power that surged through me was exhilarating. It was not just the raw power to wreak havoc and destruction. It was also the power of knowledge. When I touched the Tesseract, I could see the infinite complexity and majesty of the universe. I could see not just the building blocks of reality, but also its most intricate structures and phenomena. It was a sight and knowledge enough to humble the likes of me.

The mortals had wanted to use it for nothing else but to power their feeble dwellings and crude weapons to wage their petty wars. Pathetic. They knew nothing of the true power and potential of the Tesseract.And yet, even then, they had a purpose that I could understand. They wanted to _create_. They were children, really, but they had the drive to imagine. They were caught in their wrangling not because they wanted to, but because they did not know any better. They did not know of the world – the universe – beyond their own planet.

But the same could not have been said for the Mad Titan. He knew better. He _ought_ to have known better. It was the natural way of things that empires, civilisations and even life itself came to an end, one way or the other. It was the way the universe operated. It was the way the Tesseract had meant the universe to be. It was inevitable. Yet _he_ wanted to play god in a way that even I had not dreamt of. He knew the way of planets beyond his own, the way of the universe at large. And yet, he neither had a child’s drive to imagine nor a wise man’s introspection. He saw the Tesseract and all he thought of was how he could play with it as crudely, without any tact, or imagination or wisdom. He did not see the building blocks or the complexity of the universe. All he saw was himself. All Thanos wanted to do was _destroy_.

_Thanos._

The name itself felt like a lash across my face and my soul. True, using the Tesseract was painful. It was an Infinity Stone, after all. The very fact that I could use it without losing my mind or having the flesh melted off my bones was a testament to my power. But the real pain came from remembering my time with Thanos. He and his minions had given me enough… _incentive_ to retrieve the Tesseract and hand it over to him and in exchange, I could happily rule over Midgard.

But now I had disobeyed him, however unwittingly. I had escaped with the Stone and Thanos’ fury would follow me, as the Other had kindly said, to every realm, moon and crevice. I reasoned with myself that without making my escape, I would not have been able to hand the Stone any which way. But I knew that Thanos would not appreciate my quick thinking. He would see my failure as disobedience. Then again, he cared not whether I ruled Midgard or the ashes; all he wanted was the Stone.

But even the thoughts of Thanos and the pain that awaited me at his hands faded in comparison to the agony coursing through me now.

Something was wrong. Being pulled and stretched hurt as the Tesseract dragged you from one point in space to the other, but it was not supposed to hurt like this. This was agony comparable to my treatment at the hands of Thanos, if not worse. It felt as if my molecules were being unmade then remade. My head swam and my eyes felt as if they were on fire as a dizzying array of colours and visions whizzed past me. I tried to focus on the visions, to make sense of something other than this pain, but my head hurt more when I tried, so I stopped.

Pain. Was this what the Other had said when he had told me that if I failed, he would make me long for something as sweet as pain. Had they found me, then? Had they seen me contemplate betrayal, question their great leader? I was not going to betray you, I shouted, whether out loud or in my head, I knew not. But it did not matter. The agony did not stop. There was no resisting it, so I gave in. There was nothing left to resist or fight for. Nothing left to live for. Maybe this time, I really would die.

And then it stopped.

I fell to the floor, curled into myself, chest heaving. My entire body ached. I had not recovered from the pummelling at the hands of that great green beast, even if I had given the impression that I had been fine. That was on top of being attacked by those imbeciles for the past few days, not to mention the past year of torture. And now, this. I needed to rest. It took me forever to catch my breath. My vision had entirely gone and it took a long time coming back. My limbs had given out and I had just collapsed, lying flat on the floor. It could have been minutes or hours before the tremors in my body and the ringing in my ears stopped. I was finally able to make out that I was on my back, staring at the ceiling of a bedchamber. It was late morning or midday and judging by the style of the chamber, I was still on Midgard. That was all my brain was capable of producing at the moment. I knew I needed to sleep.

I tried for a very long time before I realised that my seidr had depleted entirely, so much so that I could not even muster enough to send out a feeler to check if there was any life form currently in this house besides me. Then again, if anybody was here they would have heard the ruckus I must have made and come to check. The very fact that I was still alive was proof enough, for I did not have an iota of strength left to defend myself. I could’ve died from being choked by a pillow.

I needed to rest. It took another bout of struggle to make my limbs move. I noticed that the bed had space under it, so I crawled towards it. Hel alone knew how long that must have taken, but I finally made my way under the bed. There was a time I would have scoffed at the thought of resting under a bed, of all places, but this was about survival. I needed to sleep in peace to recover. Then again, if I died, then so be it. At least I would die a free man. With that final thought, I fell asleep.

I woke up to find myself completely in the dark.

I was safe. My hands ran across the floor and I realised I was still in the same place. Once my vision had adjusted, I realised that indeed, I was still under the bed. I slid from my resting place and stood up, stretching my muscles and popping my joints. The rest had done me good. I felt much better. I was still a long way off from being even close to fine, but at least I could move now. I reached out to my seidr and felt a tiny spark of it within myself. It was alarming how little of it had replenished, but at least it was coming back. I finally used it to check for any presence in the house. There was none save for me. I resolved to not use it any further. I had to give myself time.

I made my way through the dark, feeling along the walls for a light switch till I finally found one. I flicked it on then appraised the room. It was not big – or maybe it was by the meagre standards of Midgard – but it looked clean and comfortable. It was well appointed with rugs and chairs and bookshelves. I glanced only cursorily at the shelves till something caught my eye.

One of the titles was written in Allspeak.

There were some titles in English and one or two other Midgardian languages, and the rest were in Norse. But it was not the variations of Norse found in Midgard – it was the Norse as it was written in Asgard, where it was called Æsir, named after the Æsir people. I strode over to the shelves and picked up the book in Allspeak. There was no trickery. Whichever page I opened to, the book was written in Allspeak, that too in the form used at court when we needed to communicate with foreign emissaries.

The Æsir, too, was written in its purest form, archaic and linguistically different enough that even I had a little difficulty in deciphering its words. It was beautifully illustrated. I stroked the paper. The material was not of this world.  

The book itself was not of this world.

A strange thought struck me. I flicked the pages as furiously as I could without damaging the book till I had arrived on the correct page. There was a writing on the margins. The reader had been trying to work out the etymology of one of the words in the text. There were circles and analyses of the root of the word, but the word had meant something completely different from what I had thought.

For this was my handwriting and these were my notes, made centuries before I had found myself in this current mess.

I shut the book carefully and placed it back in its correct spot on the shelf. Even the books were organised as I had preferred – first by theme, then by title and finally by the name of the author. My panting had returned, but this time, I knew it was from something other than pain.

Was it bewilderment? Dread? Curiosity? Discomfort? I knew not. It was both all of these and none of these at the same time. How had my book, from my private library, in my private chambers all the way in Asgard ended up _here_ , in this small chamber on Midgard? I swivelled around, looking about the room wild-eyed. I saw a miniature portrait on one of the bedside tables and lunged for it.

There were six individuals. Four of them were young Midgardians. Three of them were garbed in the common fashion of Midgard. One of them was in a loose and shapeless patterned white robe that reached past her knees. Her left arm and leg were in a cast. She was being supported by two people.

One of them was Thor.

The other, with one arm around her waist, was me.

I inhaled sharply. What sorcery was this? Why was I supporting this Midgardian woman? Why was I with my brother? Where was this portrait taken? But most importantly, where was I?

There was nothing more to be gleaned from this portrait, so I put it back on the table. In my bafflement and anxiousness, I was too rough and the glass shattered. Judging by its location, it had meant something special to the person this chamber belonged to. But I had no time to worry about the sentiments of a Midgardian. I saw another portrait on the other shelf and made my way to it. This one was even more bizarre. It had only two individuals.

There I was, _smiling_ , with my chest brushing the back of and my arms wrapped around the woman whom I had been supporting in the first portrait. Her arm and leg were not in a cast anymore. Had this photo been taken before the first one or after? Probably after, judging by the… _contact_ of our bodies. There she stood, smiling merrily, contently, like one who had everything that she could have asked for, at whoever was making the portrait. She showed not the slightest hint of hesitance or fear as she stood in my arms. She stood as if she belonged there.

Maybe I had finally lost the last of my sanity. It had taken Odin, Thanos and Thor and his new friends, but they had finally driven me mad. With a cackle that I never thought I was capable of making, I set the portrait back down, this time with slightly more regard, and made way for the wardrobe.

The woman’s clothes, the Midgardian who was in both those portraits and to whom this house clearly belonged, were to one side. To the other side were a man’s clothes. I fumbled through them and examined them. Black, green and gold.They were of the Midgardian style, the kinds that I had worn when I had visited Thor when he had been exiled and when I had visited that ball in Stuttgart. My fingers found some strips of cloth and I tugged at them. Scarves. The exact type, with the exact material and the exact patterns that I favoured.

I slammed the door shut and stormed out of the bedchamber. The entire house was plunged into darkness, so the woman was not back. This time, I did not bother looking for the light switches. With a touch of seidr, I lit up all the lights in the house and raced down the stairs to the living room.

Some of the walls had tapestries from other worlds. The shelves and tables had trinkets and books that were just as alien to the planet. There were more portraits too in varying sizes. A lot of them had just the woman and me, sometimes smiling and sometimes not, but always close to _her_ , taken on both Midgard and other realms – and even Asgard. There were others that had just her, or her with some others. There was also ones that had her and Thor or Stark. So she was an agent of Stark’s, I thought, my nostrils flaring. But then what was she doing with me? Why was _I_ involved? _How_ was I involved? Was this even me? How could it be? How was it possible? Was this an impostor? Did she know?

But then there were portraits of me, her _and_ Stark, Thor and the other imbeciles.

How could this be? How could I be not just with this wretched creature, but _them_? How was I not at their throats and they attempting to be at mine? What was this? A fantasy? A madhouse? A shrine?

I swayed on spot, not sure whether it was my physical weakness or my state of confusion. Probably both. I stumbled across the house with as much grace and clarity of thought as that of a bilgesnipe. I almost collapsed against the bureau as I picked up yet another portrait.

It was made on Alfheim. The wretched woman was admiring the ljósdǫgg, those luminous creatures found on the planet. They were nothing more than insects, but of course the stupid Midgardian was enamoured with them as if they were nature’s most beautiful creation. One had landed on her head and she was trying to look at it, with that stupid curiosity and the stupid little smile etched all over her pathetic face.

And there I was, having pulled her flush against my chest, staring at her as if this weak little mortal was the only thing that mattered, the only thing that had mattered and would ever matter. That man in the photo – for it was _not_ me, it could not be me – looked at peace with himself. It was not me, for there was no way I could ever find so much contentment. There was no way I was capable of so much love.

That word settled bitterly as soon as I thought it. This man looked like me, stood like me, smiled like me, but he was not me, because I was a monster and monsters did not dally with pretty little Midgardian women. Monsters did not love.

As disgusted as I was by the portrait, I could not look away from it. The scene felt private. Intimate. It did not feel right for me to gaze at it, but I could not stop myself. I told myself I was looking at it to sully the memory, to destroy its sanctity, even if the owner would not know I had, but I was not a liar capable enough to fool myself. Where was this man, then? Were he and the woman out on another adventure, making more portraits of yet more sickeningly sweet moments? Was he happy? How could he be happy with this woman? She was nothing. But maybe she was something to him. He was not me, after all. And I was not him. 

My contemplations were cut short when I heard the soft noise of a key turning a lock. I turned around to see who it was.

It was her. The woman. The wretched woman.

It was shameful how fast my heart was racing. She stared at me in bewilderment. Perhaps I was right. That man was indeed not me. But instinct told me that that was not the reason why she was so tongue-tied. Was it shock? I had broken into her house, for all intents and purposes. Was she going to scream? Was she going to attack me? Was she going to call for the ‘Avengers?’ Was she one of them herself? That would explain why she was so close with them – but would explain even less why she was with me – no, that man. I gathered what little seidr I had, prepared to subdue her. I did not want to kill her, for I was a warrior, not a killer, but if it came down to that, then so be it. A small part of me wondered if I was capable enough to take her on in this state, but I silenced it.

But she did not look as if she had a single fighting bone in her body. Indeed, if she had wanted to attack me she would have done it by now. So, I studied her. She looked older than in her portraits. Tired. Unhappy. Grieving. She was wearing a black dress, which somehow seemed to make her look even more shrunken and woebegone. It was _her_ , but there was no joy left in her. She was as different from the version in those portraits as I was from the man in them. What had happened?

She had been staring at the portrait, but now she turned her eyes to me. I inhaled deeply, wary. Suddenly, as if a switch had been turned on, her knees started shaking and her handbag fell. Her eyes started filling with tears. An odd emotion filled my chest.

“Loki?” she whispered.

I went rigid. She said my name. Was that the name of the man in the portrait as well? 

“Loki?” she asked again, this time louder.

She spoke with such unmistakable yearning, sorrow and… love. There was no other word for it. I put the portrait back in its place, unwilling to subject this one to the rough treatment others had experienced. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Nothing would have come out even if I had been able to speak, for I knew not what to say. The emotion in her voice was enough to melt even my heart, for it was pure and heartfelt as little other in my life had been.

I could not escape the truth. It was _her_. And it was _me_. It was _us_.

But before I could think anything else, she exclaimed my name once more and began running to me. My instincts kicked in and I released my seidr at her. She crumpled to the floor, unconscious. I could not kill her – not till I had got some answers, at least. The dizziness returned in full force and I fell against the sofa to steady myself. A few minutes passed. Mustering the last of my energy, I walked over to her and picked her up. Mortals weighed little, but in this state, even this much of a load was too much to bear. Nevertheless, I persevered and climbed the stairs back to the bedchamber. I laid her on the bed, then stumbled to a nearby chair. I fought against sleep, anxious to wait till she had woken up and ask her questions, but my eyelids drooped shut and soon, I was as unconscious as her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't already, check out my Loki's POV of A Job Million PRs Would Die for: [A PR Million Clients Would Kill for](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18795943/chapters/44596768).
> 
> The first photo described (the one where the 'wretched woman' has a cast on her arm and leg and is supported by Loki) is from [Ch. 26](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15991370/chapters/42223691) of JMPWD. I imagine it's particularly significant for Scandal, since it was their first ever photo together.
> 
> Ljósdǫgg is made of "Ljós," which is "light" and "dǫgg," which is "dew". So, it essentially means light dew. I really don't know how Old Norse grammar works, so if I made some error in writing this word, please educate me. 
> 
> Allspeak is mentioned in the comics, where it is the language that the Asgardians speak such that it sounds like all other creatures' native language. So if Thor spoke to me in Allspeak, it would probably sound like English to me. Or Hindi. No idea how it works with people who speak more than one language. But you get the point.


	3. Sleeping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Read this chapter on [Tumblr](https://saiansha.tumblr.com/post/185254772772/saudade-a-love-millions-would-dream-of-ch-3).
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 

I dreamed.

* * *

 

_“I have to go now.” He kissed my shoulder, my temple and my mouth, then withdrew._

_“You can stay for the night, can’t you?” I asked longingly.  
_

_“You know I cannot.” He cleaned himself then magicked his clothes on, ready to walk out of the room, while I still lay in the bed, unrecovered.  
_

_“Please…”_

_He stopped, sighed, and walked back to me. He didn’t sit down, but he bent to kiss my forehead. I clung to him, even though I knew I was only prolonging the inevitable._

_“I will return soon; you know I will.”_

_“No, I don’t.”_

_“I will.”_

* * *

_Frigga had always respected her younger son’s need for complete privacy and been loath to enter his rooms lest she chanced upon something that she’d rather pretend to have no knowledge of. But today she charged into our rooms, the wisps of cloth of her gown flying behind her. I removed myself from the comfortable window seat from which I had been watching the Bifrost and the starry sea of space beyond it._

_“Come, child!” she urged. I had never seen her in such hurry or disarray before. “We need to get you to Midgard safely.”_

_“What? Why?” I spluttered, but trailed after her as she grabbed my hand and pulled me through the corridors of the palace. “What is happening?” I kept crying. “What is going on? Frigga? Frigga!”_

_But she didn’t get the chance to answer._

_Angry shouts – then panicked ones – pierced the air. The clang of swords and metal and the grunts of men echoed through the golden halls._

_Frigga turned to me once more. “You must do exactly as I say.”_

_And then there was darkness and falling. The only sensation that existed was the feeling of my innards being torn out. The only sound that I heard was my own scream._

* * *

_Thick clouds, the likes of which I’d never seen, shrouded the house in darkness. Thunder boomed so loud that I feared the walls would break down. For the first time in so many days, I heard animals cry._

_False hope, I told myself. It was just false hope. When will you learn, you stupid girl? When will you learn? There was a storm that day too, when everything turned to dust. Not all storms mean it is –_

_“My lady?”_

_It_ was _him._

_Not giving thought to how hot my body felt or how laboured my breaths were from the mere effort of feeding myself, I ran down the stairs. I tripped down the stairs, paying no heed to my bruised shins or my dizzy head. It was nothing that I hadn’t experienced for the past three weeks._

_“Thor!” I exclaimed and threw myself into him, running my hands over him to check if he was alright, to check if he was real. “Where – what – what?”_

_That was the worst thing – he stayed silent._

_“Thor? Thor!” I shook him, I hit him, I tugged at his clothes and armour, but he said nothing. “Thor! Answer me!” I screamed, having forgotten any shred of worry for him, “What happened? Where is he? Where is Loki?”_

_I should have known._

_Why didn’t I know better?_

_Stupid girl._

_He fell to his knees. He looked up at me, finally showing some emotion on his face. Tears. He was crying. Why was he crying? Why had he cut his hair? Why did he have a beard? Why were his eyes mismatched? Why was he clutching my legs?_

_“ANSWER ME!” I roared, gripping his head and digging my nails in._

_“Gone. He is gone,” Thor muttered._

_The tears I hadn’t realised were building up fell. I ignored them; they had no business falling._

_“I asked you, where is Loki? Where is he?”_

_“Gone. Gone. He is gone.”_

_I should’ve known._

_What did he mean ‘gone?’ Where had he gone? When was he coming back? Had they dealt with Hela? Had he gone to mourn Frigga?_

_Frigga._

_I clutched Thor’s shoulders in panic. “Does he hate me? Is that why he’s not coming? Does he hate me because she used so much of her power to send me back to Earth when Hela invaded? Is that why? He hates me, doesn’t he? Doesn’t he?”_

_“He is gone.”_

_“Take me to him. I need to see him once, please.”_

_He squeezed his eyes shut and new tears rolled out._

_“Thor, why are you crying? Are you upset with me too? I’m sorry! Please, you know I love Frigga too! I didn’t ask her to send me here, please! I promise! I’ll explain it to Loki and you, just take me to him, please!”_

_“My lady –”_

_“You know I love her like a mother! She is like a mother to me – she_ is _a mother to me! Please!”_

_“Mother is –”_

_“JUST GIVE ME A CHANCE TO EXPLAIN!”_

_“Mother is dead.”_

_I clutched his shoulders even tighter. I dug my nails into his armour and it hurt, but I did not care. “What?” I whispered. That was all I could say._

_“Mother is dead. And Loki –”_

_I found my voice again. “No.”_

_“Loki is –”_

_“No,” I said firmly._

_“– too.”_

_“No.”_

_“Loki is too,” he said wearily._

_“No.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“No.”_

_“Loki is gone.”_

_I tried saying no again, but I couldn’t. I watched a couple of tears fall on to Thor’s cheeks. I wiped them off, my hands shaking. My voice was stuck in my throat. I couldn’t decide what was more important: trying to speak, clearing my blurry vision, or trying to breathe. I took in breaths, but my vision was swimming, so I breathed faster, but the faster I breathed, the more my vision swam, till I fell._

_Once again, there was darkness and falling. Only this time, there was no pain or anguish. There was only relief._

* * *

_I dusted the books and the bookshelves for the tenth time that day, touching and reading and rereading the familiar titles in a trance.  
_

_So much dust._

_“You are still weak; you need to eat.”_

_Every day we played this game, and every day we played it better._

_“Yeah.”  
_

_“Mortals are not able to withstand dark energy. It cost me too, when Father used it to send me to Midgard when the Bifrost was broken.”_

_The dust went away, but I knew it would come back. It always did._

_“My lady, my mother did not sacrifice herself to send you to safety just for you to starve yourself.”_

_He was becoming good at the game._

_“I know.”_

_I wanted to say more, I truly did. But the words wouldn’t come._

_“Sister,” he pleaded._

_I jumped and turned around. It had been long since he had called me that. “Why… why would you call me that?”_

_“You and I are each other’s only family now. I do not know about your Midgardian family, but my case stands.”_

_I didn’t confirm or deny if I still had my human family._

_“I need to clean the books.”_

_“Loki would be disappointed to see you like this.”_

_It felt as if he’d punched me in the gut. We hadn’t spoken his name since that day._

_“Don’t say his name,” I whispered. Maybe the dust would bury the memories too, that way._

_Thor looked at me in shock. “I will not dishonour him by refusing to utter his name!” he finally exclaimed, making me jump again. “How can you turn your back to him and his memory like that? I will not stand for it!”_

_“I’m – I’m not –”_

_He was too close to the bed, too close to me. There was so much dust._

_“Loki was the King of Asgard and he died protecting his people and his family. You will not commit him to oblivion like this.” He came closer to me. He was going to dirty the books, I knew it. “This is not grieving – this is disrespect to yourself and my brother, your lover and –”_

_“My lover,” I said sharply, “is the only man allowed in my bedroom, and you are not him. Leave.”_

_I could play the game well too._

_He had always found it amusing when his speech mannerisms sometimes crept into my own. He loved how I would sometimes command my colleagues the way he commanded most humans. He loved when I unleased that sharp wit and biting tongue sometimes on his brother. He could be cruel, but I doubt he would have enjoyed_ this _kind of cruelty from me._

_Thor’s face went uncharacteristically stoic. It was in moments like these that I could see that they were brothers in nurture and spirit, if not nature and flesh. His eyes became cold. I had never seen such coldness on his face. Without another word, he stormed out of the room and the house and stormed away somewhere else entirely, the thunder and lightning being the markers of his departure._

_The dust returned._

_I wiped it away._

* * *

_I spent the days after our last talk fretting and fussing. My languidness had been replaced by anxiety and hyperactivity. Those first twenty-something days I’d spent sleeping for as long as possible because that was easier. I had barely left the bedroom when I had woken then, whereas these few days I’d spent manically cleaning the house, arranging and rearranging things. I slept for no more than an hour or two and as soon as I got up, I surged out of my bed as if I had a whole day’s worth of work instead of idleness and emptiness ahead._

_So when the door banged open, I raced down the stairs like I had four weeks ago._

_“Thor!” I tackled him. “Where have you been? I was so worried!”_

_He was in his armour, with that monstrous axe in his hand. I still needed to ask him what had happened to Mjolnir._

_There was dust on the carpet, but I ignored it for now.  
_

_“Thor?” I asked when he squeezed my shoulder in greeting, but eased me off him. “What happened?”_

_He walked towards the kitchen. “Where is the cellar?”_

_“What?”_

_“The cellar. Where is it?”_

_I looked at him oddly, but walked past him to show him the entrance. He went down and I followed him. I turned on the lights and he made a beeline for the Asgardian wines that L-_ he _had curated. He opened a barrel and started gulping down the wine._

_“Thor!” I cried._

_He might have drowned half the barrel’s contents before he wiped his face and paused only just long enough to reply, “He had his faults, but curating vintages wasn’t one of them.”_

_I was too weak to pull the barrel away from him, or him from the barrel, so I watched with mounting horror as he made his way through two of them before collapsing._

_“Thor!” I exclaimed again and ran to him, almost tripping on the liquid. I tilted his head this way and that, looking for signs of injury and possibly alcohol poisoning.  
_

_“I did it, my lady,” he gurgled. “I did it.”_

_“Did what?” I asked, panicked._

_“I went for the head.”_

_His own head lolled when he fell asleep. It took every bit of my strength, weakened as it was from the days of starvation and no exercise, to make sure he slept on his side._

_The dust was everywhere.  
_

* * *

_I returned home that night to find Thor sitting in the living room, not just sober but also cleaned, shaven and dressed in his armour. Stormbreaker casually rested by one arm of the sofa._

_“My lady,” he greeted._

_I nodded and awkwardly hovered in the living room, trying to think of what to say. We hadn’t spoken much during these past few weeks after he had returned and started his drinking. Thor had liked his alcohol – copious amounts of it – but rarely so much as to knock himself out in a few seconds, and never to do a repeat of that every other day._

_On the days he raided the cellar, I stayed in my room. I only came down to cook, make sure there was food for him, and check on him once a while. It was from those drunken ramblings that I learned bits and pieces of what had happened: Mjolnir had been broken, Hela had killed Frigga, Loki had died saving Thor, Thor had impaled Thanos rather than cut off his head, and the Stones had gone and there was no reversing anything._

_On the days he wasn’t drinking, he went out and brought back food. Fruits, vegetables and meat, when he could find it. I had watched him smoke a deer once. I’d never tell him, and rarely would I even approach him when he was sober, but he’d always know when something had broken, or when the power had failed, or when there had been a problem with water, and he’d help fix it. And when the chores were done, he’d take up drink again._

_“Hi.”_

_“Where are you returning from?” he asked, gesturing to the bags I was holding._

_“Oh, I went to the market. I wanted to see if there was something there. There’ve been some things I’ve been wanting to get. I only got some stale bread. No milk. Well, there was milk, but it had gone bad. So has the bread, you know. But at least we can do something with it. I can see if we still have some sugar and I can make a bread pudding. Well, you’d need milk for that. But I can try to make it without milk. Or we can just have some French toast-like thing. That will be nice, right?"  
_

_This was the most I’d spoken at a stretch in the past two months. Thor said nothing._

_“Are you upset about the car?” I asked, desperate to keep away the silence that till a few moments ago I had cossetted, “Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t have used up fuel for this, but I really wanted to see if there was anything in the market. I know, I should’ve known that there won’t be anything, but I’d hoped. Still, we have enough fuel for an emergency or two, don’t worry. Not that you need to worry, of course, you have your hammer – I mean, axe.”_

_He stood up and I stepped back, worried I’d angered him. He took another step forward and gently tugged the bags and put them on the side table. Then he put his hands around my shoulders._

_It was only then that I realised that it had been two months since anyone had last touched me. I jumped and yelped. “What are you doing?”_

_He didn’t reply. He merely steered me to the sofa, settled me on it, then sank on his knees to the floor next to me. “The ship carrying the survivors of the destruction of Asgard has finally arrived.”_

_I stared at him mutely._

_“They will need to settle and rebuild here on Midgard.”_

_I half wished he’d let go of my hands, half wished he didn’t. I thought I could see dust._

_He inhaled. “They will need my help.”_

_“Okay.”_

_“Because I am their King now.”_

_I gulped. Yes, he was. For their king..._ my king _… was gone._

_“Do you see?” he asked._

_“What?”_

_“I need to help them.”_

_I was right; there was dust. “So?”  
_

_“I need to go.”_

_I had to clean it. “Go where?”  
_

_“To help them settle, my lady. To build their homes and rule them.”_

_Stupid girl._

_I should've known._

_The words did not sink in for the longest time. When they did, I jerked away from his touch._

_“No! You can’t! You can’t!” I cried, unwilling and unable to say he couldn’t go because I needed him.  
_

_“I have to,” he said apologetically._

_“I – I – I,” I said, distressed, gesturing and looking everywhere but at him. “No.”_

_“My lady…”_

_“No!” I shouted, then burst into tears._

_It was the first time I had cried since the day Thor had told me he was gone._

_“Don’t go, please, don’t go!” I wept. The words which I’d been unable to say came freely now. “Please, we were doing fine. We were fine. We were surviving alright. Everything was okay. Don’t go, please, Thor, please, I beg you! I’ll do anything! I’ll be better! I have been horrible, but I need you, don’t go, I’ll change! Please!” I cried and dove to his feet and clung to his legs as he had clung to mine._

_He was so shocked that he exclaimed my name. He hoisted me up and fiercely hugged me to him._

_“Don’t leave me with the dust,” I kept on muttering, my voice and sobs muffled against his chest._

_He stroked and shushed me till I’d somewhat calmed down. "Shhh, sister,” he coaxed me and moved me away so that he could wipe my tears and place a kiss on my forehead. “Shh. We are each other’s family, are we not?”_

_A few weeks ago, I had hated that term of familiarity, hated how it harked back to a better time. But now, I clung to it. Anything to make him stay._

_“Come to New Asgard with me. They are your people as much as they are mine. And I promise you, sweet sister, that you shall always have a place in my home and in New Asgard.”_

_The dust started falling once more._

_It took various shapes and forms, some familiar, some not, and it kept falling. I tried to move, I tried to speak, but nothing happened. It fell and it fell and it fell, till I was buried in it. I could still see, I could speak once more, but Thor could not hear. I watched him get buried under the dust. I watched the dust settle on the photos and curiosities I’d so zealously kept clean. I watched the house crumble in the dust, and it still kept on falling and I kept on standing._

_And then the dust became the darkness into which I fell once more._

* * *

I woke up.

I was drenched in sweat. The only source of light in the room was from the moonlight coming in from a window to the side.

It was the moonlight more than the pressure that told me there was a hand on my forehead. But it wasn’t till I realised a tall, thin figure was standing next to my bed, studying me, that my senses returned.

I pushed the hand off, jumped across the bed and screamed. “What are you doing?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I imagine her preoccupation with dust here is how we act about making sure the door is locked before we go to sleep. Is it locked? Just let me check once more. But is it for sure? Let me check it again. No but really, is it? Also ngl, I teared up a little when she was saying sorry to Thor for not being nicer and begging him to stay.
> 
> 2\. The dreams are actually kind of that neat little trick Loki did in Ragnarok, when he made Valkyrie relive her memories to find out what had happened. Also, note: this fic will be modifying Ragnarok heavily. The end result will be the same, but the methods would be different.
> 
> 3\. Frigga using Dark Energy to send her back to Earth was what Odin used to send Thor to Earth in Avengers, when the Bifrost was still under repair after Thor 1. Loki refers to this when Thor intercepts him after Stuttgart. 
> 
> 4\. Please feel free to leave constructive criticism and feedback. I welcome it.


	4. Waking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Read this chapter on [Tumblr](https://saiansha.tumblr.com/post/185796917837/saudade-a-love-millions-would-dream-of-ch-4).

Judging by the position of the planet’s moon, I had been asleep for six hours, but even after that I felt utterly exhausted. No, exhausted was not the right word – I felt defeated. Still, I had recovered my mental faculties and I could finally focus on acting instead of reacting. I walked to the window, deliberately ignoring the bed and the creature that lay upon it. I drew back the curtains, pushed open the windows and took in a gulp of air.

A year is nothing in the life of a god, but a year without fresh air is an eternity for anyone. Here, with the moonlight on my face, a cool breeze tickling my skin and nothing but rustling of the leaves and miles of forest around me, I could pretend that the past year had simply not happened. That I was in my cottage in Ringsfjord, with no presence other than my own.

A soft sigh from the side shattered that notion.

I glanced at the woman, who was still fast asleep. She looked even frailer and softer now, but also less saddened and more at peace.

As soon as I thought that, I scoffed at myself. Fool, I thought. You are not here to shed tears over her suffering. She is only alive because you had a moment of pity, that is all. Nothing more. You will merely use her to survive.

I approached her, summoning my seidr in preparation for gleaning her memories. I had to gain information for it was important to know your surroundings and your enemy.

The only reason I hesitated was because mining memories was never a pleasant task. It was not just peeking in through a window, so to speak, as most people assumed. It was entering that person’s mind and becoming them. You were not just perusing their memories – you were living them as if they were your own. I had acquired the skill to not just see the memory, but also look out for those details that existed in the individual’s subconscious but had escaped their consciousness, but even that level of objectivity was not always enough to counter the onslaught of emotion.

My hand hovered above her forehead. There was grief here, loneliness and longing aplenty. I hesitated.

Then, I sneered. What grief could she have that would match mine? What did she long for that I had not longed for myself? What did this woman, who had barely seen thirty years, know of loneliness?

But still, to my shame, I hesitated. It was just fear of the unknown. But when had I grown so soft as to fear the unknown? I had always welcomed change, unlike the others around me who had mistaken eternity for constancy. What did I have to fear, then? Was it apprehension about what she was going to reveal about me? Was I capable of inflicting nothing but suffering on anyone I met?

But what did I care about a mortal’s suffering? Had I not just tried to enslave her entire race just a few hours ago? With a snarl, I brought my hand down on her forehead and watched.

I did not know what I was looking for, so I chose to go over memories just beneath the surface. There were a few of them, all of them looking sharp and vivid, yet as worn as an oft used blanket at the same time. It was clear that these memories had tremendous significance and that she recalled them time and again. It was also clear that something had caused her to ponder over them afresh today.

The first memory played. There I was, with her. _In_ her. I separated myself from her perspective as brusquely as the version of me in the memory separated from her. He left her swiftly, but not without a kiss. I chose not to dwell over that small gesture of affection. That was all it was, nothing more.

Next, I watched her sitting at the window seat in my rooms on Asgard, gazing out into the Starry Sea beyond. The quietness of the scene was disturbed when my mother – no, Frigga – came flying in. The rush of emotion at seeing Frigga again drowned out the fear and surprise of the girl. I gulped, stepping forward to touch her, though I knew it was futile. The look of fear and worry on her face set my heart pounding and I ran after the two women, anxious to see what had so distressed the older woman.

Then I realised that the palace was under attack.

Before I could have summoned my seidr – I had forgotten that that would have been of no use in a memory – a crushing blackness, not unlike the one that the Tesseract had inflicted, hit me. The agony from the dark energy surging through the woman overcame my fears and as she fell to Midgard, so did I fall out of her memories.

I was sweating, I realised. I found myself slumped by her bed, the upper half of my body almost covering her. I removed myself away, finding the thought of touching her strangely indecent. I had carried her to her bed and apparently in the past, I had bedded her, so what was the reason for this coyness?

No time to worry about that, I reminded myself. It was clear that Asgard was under attack and somehow, I had gone off to defend it. How was this possible? I had started to hate Asgard and the very concept of its existence with every fibre in my being. The attack had been grave enough to give Frigga cause for worry. Something had rendered the Bifrost inoperable, which was why she had conjured the dark energy to transport the mortal back to her home. She had cared for the mortal enough to risk weakening herself so seriously during a battle. But where was Odin? Where was Thor? How had the mightiest heroes of Asgard failed to heed its call for help?

I righted myself and stood over her once more on shaking legs. The woman was sweating as well. It was no surprise; dreaming about pain was never easy, I knew this firsthand. She had become restless as well. Her limbs twitched and her brow furrowed and relaxed repeatedly. I put my hand on her head once more and the twitching eased. I kept my hand there for a little while, till I realised that I needed to see her memories, not comfort her. I opened the gates of her mind with seidr and fell into her memories once more.

This time, she was in the same room as we were in now. The dark energy had taken its toll on her body, but there was something else contributing to her gauntness. I stayed away, a sense of foreboding growing in my mind. When the front door banged open, I watched her startle and race down the stairs, half running, half falling to receive the guest – Thor.

This man could not have been any more different from my brother. He shared the same physique and the manner of standing, but nothing else about him was familiar. This man’s hair was cut short, his eyes were mismatched, his armour was not of Asgardian-make and instead of Mjolnir he carried a greataxe. I could tell the metalwork was from Nidavellir, but the handle looked like it had been crafted from a twig that had been lying nearby. Nevertheless, it made for a fearsome weapon.

The woman called him Thor, but was he really? Once again, the doubts started creeping into my mind, yet they were hard to accept. This level of detail and realism could not be fabricated, and the personalities of Frigga, Thor and me seemed faithful to the reality so far. But this man was uncharacteristically silent, unlike the brother whose company I had suffered for a thousand years.

“Where is he? Where is Loki?” the woman asked.

My heart beat painfully in my chest. Every nerve in my body tensed as I waited for a response. Where was I indeed?

And then he fell.

My heart fell too, but my body remained rooted to the spot. It would not bend or move forward or fall backward. The woman screamed at him. I blinked, dazed from the onslaught of emotion. I was not sure anymore whose dread and desperation were coursing through me. Did it even matter? 

A memory cannot hurt me, I told myself, especially not the memory of a mortal chit.

“Gone. He is gone,” Thor uttered and proved me wrong.

I was gone.

The woman’s hysterical screaming was not enough, for once, to shut out the darkness clouding my mind, though I wish it had been. There was a growing weight settling over my body, yet at the same time I felt like I was being claimed by a chasm of emptiness. I could not decide whether her frustrated tears filled the gaping hole in me or expanded it further. I was still in her mind, yet I felt as if I were in a realm of my own.

I willed myself to focus. The woman did not seem to possess any measure of intelligence and my brother, the oaf, was not known for his mental acumen either.

And then she mentioned Frigga.

“Please, you know I love Frigga too! I didn’t ask her to send me here, please! I promise! I’ll explain it to Loki and you, just take me to him, please!” she cried.

My heart lurched further. Not Frigga, please, not Frigga, not her, anyone but her, I kept thinking.

“My lady –”

“You know I love her like a mother! She is like a mother to me – she is a mother to me! Please!”

“Mother is –”

“JUST GIVE ME A CHANCE TO EXPLAIN!”

“Mother is dead,” Thor declared.

No.

The bile rose in my mouth. My knees wobbled but I managed to remain standing. Where was Odin, I wanted to ask. Where were _you_ when Mother needed you? Where was _I_? Why had she weakened herself while protecting a _mortal_ of all creatures? Who had dared attack her? Who had dared _hurt_ her? 

But the words simply would not come out. I contained the despair rising in me. I had time enough to exact my revenge on the mortal and all those involved in her death – I would make sure of that – but I needed to finish reviewing the memory. I needed to fill the cask of hatred and fury growing inside me before I decided to spend it. My revenge would be all the sweeter for it.

And then, Thor spoke.

“Loki is too.”

“No,” she said.

No, I thought. 

“No,” she said once more.

No, I echoed.

“Loki is gone.“

The bile was at the forefront of my mouth. Was the ringing in my mind or in hers? The darkness overcoming my vision seemed to throb. My breaths came fast. The pressure in my head spread throughout my body, pulsing just like the darkness consuming me. It was not a matter of her mind or my mind anymore – we shared the same mind. Her despair, her anguish, her terror fed mine. As she gulped in air, I tried to suck in the oxygen. And as she fell, I fell.

I woke up.

With the last tiny shred of consideration still left in my body, I hauled myself away from her bed before I started retching. I retched, moaned as I tried to suck in fresh air, then retched again. 

Her faint sobs distracted me. She was still sleeping, but only just. If I probed her further while she was so distressed, she would wake. The sound of her cries bothered me as much as they annoyed me and I hung my head low, eyes shut, trying to overcome the nausea and the ringing in my head. It was not just her anguish, I realised with shame; it was mine as well.

I was dead.

How was this possible? What had happened? Where was I? 

Once again, I questioned if this were me. How could it be me? _I_ was still alive.

But these people, the figures in her memories, they were all the same. They were no reflection, no imitation. They were exactly as I knew them.

What had happened? What had I done?

I turned back to the woman, who had quietened down by now. Try as I might, I could not summon again that brief sharp spike of hatred for her. She had been the reason my mother had died. She was the reason I was in this mess. I wanted to taste revenge, but all I could taste was the acrid remnant of the bile in my mouth.

She had the answers, I knew. I had always enjoyed getting answers, but tonight, I did not want any. I wanted nothing more to do with this woman. It had taken the Avengers a fearsome battle to simply capture me, but she had brought me down with nothing but utterances of my name and a handful of memories. I wanted to run away as far as I could. I was scared, so very scared. I was never one to pursue ignorance, but this woman had made me do and feel things I never knew I was capable of.

Yet no matter how hard I tried to move, my body did not budge. I cursed myself and failing that, begged myself to leave and never return, but I was captive to my own mind. The decision had been made for me. I stood up, furiously blinking away the tears that I had not been aware had begun to gather and walked back to her. I did not use the bed for support – I did not want to touch it. I wished there was a way to look into her mind without touching her either, but I was out of luck.

With a sinking feeling, I put my hand back on her head and recommenced the torture I had chosen to inflict on myself.

She was mourning. There was nothing much to see or feel here. She was empty. The emptiness in her called out to the emptiness in me, but I resisted. I impatiently waited for the memory to move on.

“Sister,” Thor called her.

I clenched my jaw. Was it not enough that my mother had sacrificed herself for this waif that my brother also had to reach out to her? _Who_ was she?

“Loki would be disappointed to see you like this,” he said.

I inhaled sharply. It was one thing to eavesdrop on a conversation about you, but this was not the same thing, was it? This was… something different. This was not meant for my eyes and ears either, but it was not clandestine either. This was not a conversation that would go on while they were not aware I was listening; it was a conversation that would not even exist were I alive – _present_ , I amended hastily – because they would have wanted me to be a part of it. Perhaps.

“Don’t say his name,” she whispered.

“I will not dishonour him by refusing to utter his name!” Thor exclaimed. “How can you turn your back to him and his memory like that? I will not stand for it!”

“I’m – I’m not –”

“Loki was the King of Asgard and he died protecting his people and his family. You will not commit him to oblivion like this. This is not grieving – this is disrespect to yourself and my brother, your lover and –”

The _King_ of Asgard?

Incredulity did not begin to describe what I felt. In what reality was I ever a King of Asgard? It was all a lie fed to me from the day I was born to the day I let myself fall to death. Even if I were to be a King, it was to be of Jotunheim. The throne of Asgard was reserved for Odin’s trueborn son, Thor Odinson – and I was in no way him. And who exactly had I ‘died’ protecting? Why would I do that for any of them?

“My lover,” she said, “is the only man allowed in my bedroom, and you are not him. Leave.”

What farce was this? What hallucination had I conjured? Maybe I was still asleep after I had escaped with the Tesseract. Or perhaps, that had not happened at all. Perhaps it was all a wishful fantasy in which I had chosen to hide myself for the rest of the time I spent rotting in Sanctuary, left to the sadistic hospitality of the Other and Ebony Maw and all of Thanos’ Children and the Titan himself, for my failure in securing the Stone. It seemed more likely than whatever I was seeing now.

But why would I imagine myself dead, then?

Perhaps, I mused bitterly, I was aware that even in my dreams the only peace for me was the one found in death.

I wish I had died as I had intended.

But I had not, another part of me reprimanded, so there was no use wishing I had. Thinking so, I moved on to the next memory.

I had seen Thor angry. I had seen him bitter, happy, sad, joyous, triumphant, slighted, shocked and amused, but I had not seen him mourn. 

But why would anyone, especially a mortal whose race I had tried to conquer and my brother whom I had tried to kill twice, mourn for me? 

I told myself I felt nothing for the man brought up to be my rival. I told myself that it was only disgusted pity I felt as he took to drink and that all I showed him was mild sympathy, but there were some lies that you could not even tell yourself.

Thor mourned for his family, and I mourned for him.

It was not my family, I reassured myself. It was his. But I could at least understand and empathise with his grief. We had still grown up together and so I reasoned I was allowed to feel a pang of sadness for him. After all, I was still not that far gone.

The next memory started playing. The woman and Thor were talking, but I could only fixate on the narrative her mind’s voice provided me.

Mjolnir had been broken.

Someone called Hela had killed Frigga.

Thanos had collected all the Stones and had won.

Thor had failed to stop Thanos.

And I had sacrificed myself for Thor.

I barely heard the conversation that followed. The woman’s thoughts echoed in my head, clashing and banging into each other to leave behind nothing but chaos. I courted chaos, but this was not the chaos I craved. Was this how others had felt when I had turned their ‘order’ upside down? Did they feel as bereft, as lost, as overwhelmed? I had laughed at them for their lack of imagination and perspective. Would I laugh at myself?

I was at war with myself. Who I wanted to be, who I thought I was and who I actually was challenged each other. But who was I really? I was not a king. I was not a son. I was not a brother. Who was this man who stood before me?

I thought I heard something about Asgard being destroyed. The image of the citadel crumbling, its arches burning, its walls collapsing into the impossibly high waterfalls and its forests dusting away haunted me.

Thanos, my saviour, my torturer, my woe, my shame had won while I had lost everything.

A burst of energy surged out of me, uncontrolled. The dream collapsed. Everything turned to dust. Thor, the woman and I got buried under the dust. I did not bother trying to calm the storm within her mind or check my own emotions, for I knew there was no holding back this floodgate. It was going to sweep us away – it had already swept us away – and all either of us could do now was swim.

The woman’s eyes opened. She looked around, wild and unfocused. I observed her, waiting for her to register my presence.

With surprising amount of strength, she pushed my hand away from my forehead, flung herself to the opposite edge of the bed and screamed, “What are you doing?”

I, nicknamed Silvertongue, could not find the words for once.

“Who are you?” she roared. “What are you doing?”

I held out my hands. “Calm down.”

“What do you want?” she cried.

I wondered whether letting her see my face properly would scare her further or comfort her. In her panic, she fell out of her bed. My first instinct was to go help her, but I stopped myself, aware that any movement on my part was only going to alarm her further.

She picked herself up and stammered, “Who are you?”

“You know who I am.”

“No!” She backed away, trembling.

I thought I could see the tear stains on her face. “Yes, you do.”

“No!”

“You said it before, so do it again. Say my name.”

“NO!”

How strange she was. She had known as soon as she had walked in through that door who I was. I had not confirmed it, but she had known my name all the same. She had said it thrice, and so confident she was that she had tried to race into my arms. Yet now, she pretended she did not and refused to accept it, just as she refused to accept the news of my death.

I quickly shrugged off that thought and focused on her fear and denial. Watching her try to put distance between us and search for an escape from the waking nightmare she now found herself in distracted me from my own doubts and worries. I could toy with her and feel a measure of my old self again, so I walked towards her, slowly, menacingly, making sure to sidestep the puddle of bile lying on the floor. I eyed her movements as she backtracked, and noticed only too late where she was heading.

The Tesseract.

Somehow, I had forgotten that the Cube had existed and had forgotten to hide it away. How could I have been so careless?

But there was not much to do now, only watch and wait, as her foot collided with the Stone. She looked down, bewildered, then slowly raised her head to look me in the eye again.

There was no pretending now, no denying. She could not have unseen the truth even if she had wanted to.

“I am Loki, of Asgard.”

But before I could do much else, she screamed and threw the Tesseract at me. By the time I got up from being hit – my reflexes were not in the best form – and shielded the Tesseract to the best of my current capabilities, she had run from the room and flown out of the house away into the night.

I ran after her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constructive criticism is more than welcome. Please do let me know what you think! <3


	5. Running

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Read this chapter on [Tumblr.](https://saiansha.tumblr.com/post/186728556857/saudade-a-love-millions-would-dream-of-ch-5)
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 

It wasn’t possible.

It wasn’t.

It simply wasn’t.

I panted and sweat as I ran through the forest, blinded by panic. I knew my way around it roughly. Loki had been fond of taking me out to explore the forest, but that had been years ago. I had never since strolled through the forest, especially at night. My only advantage now was that I knew my way around slightly better than the man pursuing me.

Then again, if it really was Loki pursuing me…

No, it couldn’t be. It really couldn’t. It was just some weird superhero shit that had happened. I would just have to go ask Tony about it –

But Tony was dead.

I could feel my heart drop. It’s okay, I reminded myself. Deep breaths in, deep breaths out. It’s fine. Ask Nat.

But Nat was dead as well.

A spasm of pain went through my gut and I stumbled. Before I could stop myself, I cried out. Hurriedly, I clamped my hand over my mouth, looking around wild-eyed. I tried to control my breathing once more, but it wasn’t working. My pants had become too loud, too panicked, and I needed to get back in control.

I counted the five things I could see: the trees, the sky, the moon, the grass, the pebbles. Then, I focused on the four things I could touch. I ran my hands over the spiky grass; the cool, damp soil; the crepe fabric of my black dress, which I only just realised I was still wearing; and my hair. Why was I still in my dress? How long had I been sleeping? Or had I been knocked out? The latter did not seem all that unlikely.

I realised I had begun letting the thoughts overwhelm me again, so I focused on the mental exercise. Three things I could hear. I could hear my breathing, which had slowed down considerably. I could hear the wind rustling through the leaves. As soon as I thought that, I became all the more aware of the wind hitting my skin. It wasn’t cold, but it was still too cool to be running around in a forest, barefoot, in a sleeveless dress. I tried to not dwell on that and to move on to the third thing I could hear.

There was nothing. Silence. Despite myself, I relaxed. Maybe whatever it was, whoever it was, had given up. I had nothing much to offer, after all. My house – _our_ house – had nothing much that would be valued by a non-Asgardian and whatever little there was to be found, the intruder had got ample opportunity to take it away and run off. I did hope he hadn’t run off with the car. Now that everyone was back, burglaries had become as widespread as they had when everyone had first disappeared.

Then, there was a rustle of leaves and a sound of something stepping on the coarse grass.

I bolted.

I surged through the woods. I batted away the low hanging branches and leaves in blind panic, paying little heed to where I was going. I tried to pant softer to hide my presence and keep an ear out for footsteps pursuing me, but my panic deafened me to everything of use, yet made me hyper aware of every inconsequential movement. With every whisper of the wind, the rustle of the leaves and crunch of the grass, I became more and more terrified.

I had lost whatever little sense of direction I had had. It wasn’t the first time I had been chased. But unlike those times, which had been filled with breathless anticipation and only an imagined sense of danger, this was filled with very real, very potent danger. The conclusion to those chases was always the same, and no matter which direction I went, I would always attain that conclusion. The conclusion to this was unknown and no matter which direction I went now, there was a high possibility that I would pay with my life.

I slumped against a tree, too tired to care about the bark scraping against my face. I had begun feeling dizzy. Perhaps it was from being out of breath, I thought. But as I continued to gulp in oxygen and my breathing calmed, the dizziness did not dissipate. I realised I hadn’t eaten since noon. The funeral had ended around four, after which I had stayed behind for a couple of hours to help Pepper and Happy wrap up everything. I had declined Pepper’s offer for dinner and driven for two hours to get back home. I remembered seeing my car’s clock show 8:07 pm as the time before I went into the house.

Then nothing.

Had I fallen asleep? A new wave of icy terror crashed over me as I realised he had knocked me out. I ran my fingers over my head, but I felt no bruise or tenderness. How had he knocked me out then? And how long had I been out? Was it past midnight? Or had it been less? I couldn’t tell. I looked up to the stars. Loki would’ve been able to read them and guess the time. It hadn’t taken him long to learn the star charts of Earth.

Would the man in my bedroom know how to tell the time this way?

No, he wouldn’t, because he wasn’t Loki. He wasn’t.

So who was he? Was he one of those shapeshifting species that Loki had told me about – the Skrulls? If so, what did it want from me? Or was it someone wearing an illusion? But why would anyone want to target _me_? There were only two individuals for whom impersonating Loki would be of benefit: Thor and me. Thor was the god, the King of Asgard, the almighty slayer of Thanos. So why not go to him? Or did they come to me because they thought I’d be easier to fool? But even so, what would they get from me that would be of greater benefit than whatever they could have got from Thor? And why hadn’t they killed me?

Be happy they haven’t killed you, I told myself.

Yet, my brain added.

They should’ve come five years ago then.

My inner dialogue was cut through by Loki’s voice in my head. Always so pessimistic, my dear.

My mind was taken back to all those times he’d sardonically remarked how I tended to be more pessimistic than even him, to which I would always remark that I was just being a realist.

I missed him. I missed him very, very much.

And I missed him all the more now. It was cruel of the creature to take his shape to manipulate me.

I fell down to the forest floor, eyes unwittingly falling shut. I couldn’t deal with this. I didn’t want to deal with this. Five years ago, half the life in this universe had disappeared, along with most of the people I’d loved. Now, just when I had picked up the pieces and had got used to life without them, they had all come back. All of them, except Loki.

What was I to do?

I could feel the pressure gather in my forehead and nose and bloom to life in my throat. And sure as day, the first tear slipped out. I let it roll, and the next one, and the one after that, thinking that letting them out would calm me down faster, but that was not the case. My shoulders shook and my face crumpled as I finally began crying in earnest. I cried harder than I had cried at the funeral and much harder than I had cried in these past five years.

I had moved on. I had got used to this life. The loneliness had become solitude, the misery had become an old wound and the emptiness had become quietness. And now, everything had turned on its head and I felt lonelier, emptier and more miserable than before. The engines that had come back to life were nothing but noise. The talking and the bonding of people who had returned was but ceaseless chatter. The lights shining again from the once-dark homes looked far too bright.

Why was this happening?

It wasn’t supposed to be me in this place. It was supposed to be Loki. He was the one who should’ve been left lonely, not I. My mortality had been a topic we’d often discussed.

_“And this part of the garden is my mother’s finest creation,” Loki said._

_It was beautiful indeed. There were white trees with rich red foliage that drooped down to the pearly ponds in the centre. The shores were also lined by flowers that changed colours from the richest violets and softest greens to the sunniest yellows and rosy pinks depending on how the light from the two suns and moons struck them. There were entire trees made of nothing but moss, decorated by small white flowers here and there. The moss extended to the floor of the garden, carpeting it in rich, soft emerald velvet. And at the centre of the largest pond, dwarfing all the other trees in size and brilliance, stood a golden tree._

_I heard the cries of birds, though I could not see the creatures themselves. There were, however, creatures that looked like dandelion fluff flying around, as well as some creatures that shone like diamonds whenever they came in the way of the sun beam. I walked through the garden with exaggerated movements, still not having got enough of just how swishy the Asgardian gowns were._

_“If you are done with your – what do you Midgardians call it – ah, yes, ‘catwalk,’” Loki called._

_“Let a girl have her fun,” I said as I walked around each and every pond, exploring every nook and cranny I could find and every flower or tree I saw with glee._

_“You can have your fun later, but I wish to discuss something serious with you.”_

_I walked back to him, of course – but not before deliberately taking much longer than I would have to explore the current pond I was at. I was his woman, but there were only so many summons that I would listen to._

_He, of course, wasn’t too thrilled about that._

_“When I give you an order, I expect you to follow it,” he said._

_He never made me feel inferior or lorded anything over me, and I could hear the dry humour in his voice, but he could still be rather commanding. I didn’t much care for that right now._

_So, I scrunched up my face in a childish expression and in a high-pitched voice and a lisp that were definitely not trademarks of Loki’s speech, I said, “’When I give you an order, I expect you to follow it.’” Then, in my normal voice I said, “Lighten up. You’re the God of Mischief, aren’t you?”_

_He rolled his eyes. “But right now, I do not want to make mischief. I need you to listen.”_

_The seriousness in his voice sobered me. “What is it?”_

_He took my arm and led me to the biggest pond and stepped into the water._

_“Loki!” I cried, worried about ruining the dress. Frigga had gifted it to me the second time I had come to Asgard._

_“Shh!”  He tugged me along and to my surprise, instead of soaking the hem of my dress, the water rippled and solidified wherever I stepped on it._

_I gasped in mingled shock and delight. I tried to step elsewhere to see if all the water in the pond was ‘solid,’ but Loki tugged me roughly._

_“No, not there,” he said._

_I continued to walk tentatively, still wary, yet delighted, about this magical water._

_As soon as we reached the islet in the middle of the pond, I exclaimed, “It’s me, I’m Jesus. I can walk on water. I’m fucking Jesus.”_

_“You are confusing your myths. He could turn water to wine, not walk on water.”_

_“No, he could walk on water as well. It’s time you brushed up on your Earth religion studies, Loki.”_

_“I do not need to worry myself with that pile of refuse and neither do you.” He wrapped an arm around my waist to turn me around, then pulled me into him. “And I remind you, I am the only god you need to content yourself with.” He dropped a chaste kiss on my mouth then made me face the tree._

_“The tree bears the apples of Idunn.”_

_I stared wordlessly at the golden tree and its golden fruit, unable to voice my wonder and appreciation for something so beautiful._

_“May I touch it?” I eventually managed._

_He hummed in agreement. I placed my palm on the trunk, then almost withdrew in surprise. I didn’t know what I had been expecting, but it was different than what I’d thought. It was cool and smooth to the touch, unlike any other tree. Then again, no tree had golden barks, or rather, looked as if they were made of gold. What were they made of?_

_I had merely wanted to touch the tree and the leaves, but Loki plucked one of the apples and held it out for me. My heart fell at such a beautiful fruit being plucked out of such a beautiful tree. It was a normal size apple, just golden._

_“If I told you the apple would grant you immortality, then would you eat it?” he asked._

_Without missing a beat, I said, “No.”_

_“Yes, just as I thought. And if I said that the apple would make you live as long as me?”_

_I knew the answer, but this time, I wasn’t ready to say it so quickly. “No.”_

_“Again, just as I thought,” he said, although this time, he said it with an edge. “Well, the mortals think them to be the apples of immortality. It is all mortal drivel, of course, but there is some truth to it. The fruit has a special effect on mortals: if eaten daily, it increases their lifespan considerably.”_

_“I see.”_

_“I am not asking you to commit a thousand years or more to me. I am only asking you, begging you even, for just a hundred or so more.”_

_I tried to lighten the mood. “And what if I got bored?”_

_“Then it will all end relatively soon and you would not have to endure me for four thousand more years.”_

_More softly, I asked, “And what if you would get bored of me?”_

_“That is tantamount to asking Midgard if it could change its rotation so that the sun appeared in the west and set in the east.”_

_“And what will you do when I weep and mourn when I see those whom I care for die?”_

_“I will hold your hand, I will hug you till you cannot breathe, I will cherish you and thank you every day for making this choice.”_

_“You’re being selfish, you know.”_

_He smiled wryly. “Terribly so.”_

My tears subsided once I was done recalling the memory. It was morose and morbid, but it still warmed me enough to ignore the cold and my fears and clear my head. The man, whoever he was, would have given up chase by now.

But what if it was Loki? Loki believed in subverting the expected. He thrived in being unconventional.

It wasn’t Loki, I said firmly. With a groan, I heaved myself up and began tracing my steps back.

I didn’t know where I was going. I was walking around in circles. I tried looking for footprints, but the ground was too hard to throw up anything. The more I wandered, the more lost I became. The more lost I became, the more the panic rose. I tried to think of what route I would have taken. I had bolted out of the house down south, then turned right, but then I’d turned around and gone to the rock, and I’d continued in that direction till… till… there was no point.

The forest had seemed so friendly and inviting whenever Loki and I had come out for an excursion, or sinisterly dark whenever Loki and I would play around. But now, it seemed aloof. Cold and foreboding.

Daylight began to creep in until I finally saw the river. I traipsed to the shore with renewed determination and a sense of relief. Once there, I studied the surroundings. I hadn’t run off too far – I had just lost all sense of my whereabouts. From where I was, it would take around twenty minutes to walk back to my usual haunt at the river, and another ten, maybe fifteen minutes, to walk inland back to my house.

I set down the path. I was too relieved to complain about the relatively long walk. By the time I reached home, it was dawn.

The door was still open, as I’d left it after I’d run out. Everything was quiet and dark. Nothing seemed awry. I slinked back in, still on my guard, looking this way and that to make sure I was well and truly alone.

I was.

I released the breath that I had been holding and stepped in, shuffling towards the couch to rest my aching body.

Until I noticed the body on it.

I bit my lip hard enough to taste blood and froze. He hadn’t noticed me yet, and that was how I planned to keep it. Pushing down the sob rising through my throat ruthlessly, I backed away. I couldn’t have been more silent, but still, he noticed.

He bolted up and regarded me warily.

We held position, until he extended his hand to me. I didn’t waste my breath on a scream and turned once more and ran out, renewed desperation rattling through my bones.

And then I heard it.

My name.

From his lips.

My heart skipped a beat and my legs refused to move. The way he had said my name kept echoing in my head, overpowering any other voice of thought I might have had. My name, from his lips, was all it had come down to. And I couldn’t deny it anymore. It was an awful, awful truth, but I had to finally accept it as being true.

This _was_ Loki.

There was no one could say my name with the same timber, with the same level of caution, yet concern, longing and care. He said my name the way he did whenever he wanted something that he wasn’t sure I would give, when I was angry and lashing out and he wasn’t sure how to calm me down, when he was scared and hurt and couldn’t bear to say anything more than my name in the way he knew would tell me that he needed me and would bring me to his side immediately.

I couldn’t run anymore. All I could do was go back to him, so go back was what I did.

The stubborn set of his jaw, the ever so slight furrow of his brow, the thin, sensual lips pursed together and the eyes that were either blue or green depending on the light were all him. The way he licked his lips whenever he was nervous, the way his eyebrow quirked slightly as I approached, the way his gaze ran over every inch of my body to assess my next move – it was him.

He had returned.

It was Loki.

Except for the tremor in his legs that suddenly shot up his entire body. He looked at me, eyes widened, and before I could do anything, he collapsed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Thanks to fancyboots and Agent Moshi for giving me the nudge to update this. Hope I can be a little more regular with updating it! 
> 
> 2\. Check out the playlist [here!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2ITxFg3jR4n1hwBRSOQYuh?si=qOvglq3PSFeX0TIbwh1iww) It's an eccentric mix of jazz and songs, including two foreign language songs. Let me know if you'd like to add a song!
> 
> 3\. As always, please do leave constructive criticism and feedback!


	6. Still

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Read this chapter on [Tumblr](https://saiansha.tumblr.com/post/187059598387/saudade-a-love-millions-would-dream-of-ch-6).
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> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to write "Dark!Loki" here but I will say that 2012 Loki is rather unhinged, so him being physically violent is not an anomaly. There is some violence towards the end of this chapter (nothing sexual) so if that disturbs you, please feel free to skip.

When I came to, most of my body lay on the floor, except for my head, which was upon an uncomfortable cushion. The blissful coldness that cocooned me slowly vanished save for from my extremities. It felt like a monumental chore to open my eyes. My vision took a long time to return and all I could do was blink rapidly to chase away the darkness. When sight returned, I found myself looking up at the woman. The gaze full of gentleness, concern and kindness would have been a balm on anyone else’s wounds, but on mine, it felt not unlike the glass needles that Maw had often prodded me with.

I grunted and tried to move away, but my muscles felt as if they had been replaced by rigid bone. I turned my head away and closed my eyes and decided to consider it a victory for now.

“Don’t move,” she said sharply, yet even that sharpness was tempered with a certain softness. An unyielding softness. I was not making any sense, was I? My mind was in shambles.

I paid her no heed. Something cold and hard slid over my eyes. Her fingers firmly returned my head to its intended position and the frozen slab was once again on my head. What was she doing to me?

She must have sensed my silent inquiry, for she said, “It’s an ice pack. You had become alarmingly warm so I placed a couple of them on you. It’s working, I think.”

As more awareness returned to me, I realised that the coldness I had felt around my extremities was indeed coming from these curious slabs.

“Well, I’m not an expert on Jotun biology, so I don’t know,” she continued. I started at hearing her speak of my origins. How carelessly she dropped the word, as if it held no significance at all. “I need to call Thor.”

My hand shot up and grabbed her wrist. She cried out in surprise.

“No” I croaked, doing my best to sound authoritative.

“What?”

“No. Thor. _No._ ”

“Loki, I need to call Thor; I can’t treat you by myself!”

“ _No_ ,” I growled and clamped her hand so that this time, she cried out in pain.

“Okay, okay!” She frantically tried to free her hand. I let it go. She rubbed it as she muttered under her breath.

She reached out for something to her side: a pitcher and a cup. She poured the contents of the pitcher into the cup and held it in front of me. “Can you get up? You need to drink some water.”

I considered saying no simply to spite her, but I realised I was dehydrated and I could not sustain myself on my spite. I despised having to rely on a mortal female for help. But as much as it pained me to do so, I put away my pride and grunted at her to position me upright. She put aside the cup, removed the slab from my head and hands and came next to me to support me. She had more strength in her hands than I had in my entire body. She let me lean against the sofa and fetched the cup again. I let her raise it to my lips and greedily gulped its contents, while she fussed at and massaged my head. I hated it.

Had I more strength, I would have slapped her and her hands away and stepped over her to the exit.

“More?” she asked.

I looked at her with frustration and gave a small sharp nod. She crawled to the pitcher and refilled the cup and offered it to me again. My thirst was quenched only after I had drunk all the water left.

I did not deign to look at her while she rearranged the packs. “Leave them,” I said.

She looked at me in question, then brought her hand to my forehead. I swatted it away. She looked at me with hurt and confusion and quietly said, “Well, I guess it’s fine.”

She pulled cast the packs aside and continued staring at me in that same imbecilic, simple-minded way. It vexed me to no end.

But I needed to be careful. As much as I disliked this woman and her attention, I was, for some reason, in favour with her and it would do me little good to squander that away.

“I need sustenance,” I said as evenly as possible.

She nodded quickly, having got over her irritation. But then, she said, “I really think I should call Thor, because he’s the only one who can –”

“No!” I roared, grabbing her by her wrists and pulling her so that I could grapple her shoulders. “You will _not_ call Thor, do you hear me?”

“But, Loki, I –”

“ _Darling_ ,” I grimaced and shuddered as I said the word. It tasted as foul on my tongue as the bile that I had retched in her room earlier. “Please. Just listen to me.”

Her eyes darted all over my face frantically, but then settled once more on my eyes. “Okay, okay…”

I gestured her to come closer to me. It created that false sense of intimacy that I wished to inundate her with, kept her close to me in case she decided to do something untoward and allowed me to recline more easily. She settled next to me, her legs brushing mine, one arm thrown around my chest and her face gazing up at me with more of that taxing adoration. I loathed the feel of her, the touch of her, the sight of her, but I tolerated it for now.

“Tell me, where are we?” I asked.

“New York.”

I frowned. We were surrounded by forests and a river. How could we be in that hideous grey city?

“Upstate,” she clarified. “In the suburban area.”

I still did not understand fully, but it was best not to press on this question any further. For now, the information that I was in some proximity to the city I had tried destroying mere hours before was enough.

“Where is Thor?”

“New Asgard.”

New Asgard? What by the infernal fires of Muspelheim was New Asgard? But, that was the obvious question, was it not? I sensed I ought to know the answer to that question, so I asked a different one.

“Where is that?”

“In Norway.”

What was Thor doing in Norway, of all places?

“Who is there with him?”

“The Asgardians. Maybe some of the locals. And Brunhilde.” 

There was a slight inflection in her voice when she said ‘Brunhilde.’ Who was this Brunhilde and what had she done to earn the disapproval of this syrupy sweet-tempered mortal? And what by the Norns were the Asgardians doing here? All of these were questions to which I would have to deduce the answers.

“Where did you just return from?”

Pain flashed across her face and her voice wavered as she said, “Tony and Natasha’s funeral.”

My eyes widened in shock. I could not help but clamp my hand on her shoulder. It must have been rough enough to hurt her, for she winced, but her eyes watered from agony other than the one in her body.

“ _What?”_ I whispered.

The dam holding back her tears broke and she crept closer to me, fisted my leathers, buried her face in my chest and bawled. I fisted her hair and yanked her head back and then to an inch away from my face, eyes burning holes in her.

“Stark and Agent Romanoff?” I ascertained, my voice steady and emotionless only due to the countless decades of training and discipline I had put myself through.

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “Yes!”

Her anguish overwhelmed her once more and she flung herself on me with greater force. I let her bawl, for I was busy recovering from my own shock. My eyes darted about the room wildly, as if in hope that the house would give me a clue on how to proceed. My two enemy combatants, dead. Just hours prior, they had been standing over me, Stark smirking at my little quip about a drink and Romanoff holding the Sceptre in her hands, not sharing in Stark’s amusement. 

I pulled her head up once more. “Tell me,” I said, letting the urgency creep into my voice.

She stared at me for the longest moment. My irritation rose steadily and I was tempted to strike her when she spoke. “Loki, how are you…” her voice broke and her eyes flooded with tears.

She placed her hands around my head and before I could react, she had smashed her lips against mine. I wanted to push her away or remove myself from her hold, but for the first few seconds I could do nothing but just feel. I felt her lips tugging and pushing mine, trying to get me to respond. I heard her sobs that grew louder and louder with anguished disbelief. I tasted the salt of her tears on my lips.

When I found the presence of mind to push her away, she did not resist. Instead, she buried her head into the crook of my neck, her body almost completely on top of mine and our legs entangled. Her chest heaved with the force of the emotions coursing through her body and shook my entire body along with it. My hair, coated in sweat and grime and blood, were now also drenched in her tears. Her nails clawed at the leather and metal without heed. I could feel her heart furiously beating against my chest, as if it was compensating for all the times the heart of the dead man who was supposedly me had not beat. She bawled and cried and screamed and I listened to it all like it was a rapturous melody.

I should have moved her off, but all my hand could do was touch her back, then hold her closer to me. Grief, anguish, sorrow, regret – these had been the emotions that had fueled me and moved me. I did not know her, but I could understand loss. And her sorrow was directed at me. It was for my benefit.

Who else would have wept so dearly for me when I fell into the abyss?

No one.

But this woman wept for me and that was more than what I had got… more than what I could have hoped for. In this moment, this woman, for whatever reason, cared more for me than my supposed kin had.

So I let her cry. I let her scream. I even let my hands stroke her hair and her back in comfort. The feel of her, the touch of her, the sight of her did not repulse me as much now.

It was long before she stopped. I lifted her off me and held her face in her hands. “Tell me,” I said.

She shook her head. “How did you come back? Thor told me… even the Asgardians all said that you were…” she bit her lips and shuddered as she said, “gone.” 

“I told you, did I not, that I would always be there for you?” I smiled tightly. A response such as this should work, yes? She gave no reaction to indicate otherwise.

“Loki… _how?”_

I sighed. She was not going to rest till she had wrangled some answer from me. It would be easier to get this done with vague statements than try to gather information to tell a more informed tale.

“I am one of the finest sorcerers in the universe, my dear,” I said, trying to not sound so stiff. “Thanos is nothing.”

The lie sounded so simple, but it had struck me with a coldness – and not the pleasant kind – to dismiss away my torturer, my resurrector, my benefactor so… easily. Thanos had pervaded every inch of my mind this past year and yet I spoke of him as if he were nothing, when in fact, it was me who was nothing.

“How did you do it?”

“I created an illusion to escape.”

“Why… why did you never come back?”

“I was exhausted. The fight had taken too much out of me.”

“Where were you all this while, though? Why did you never come back, nor send a message even once these five years?”

_Five years?_

How by Odin’s beard was this possible? How could it be five years? I had just left New York in the Midgardian year 2012. How could I have come five years into a future where I was dead, Frigga was dead, Odin was dead, Stark was dead, Romanoff was dead and Thanos had won?

How?

But if I had known this woman and she had grown so attached to me, I could not have met her just five years ago when I had seemingly died. I had met her at least a year before that – but that was a mere estimate. I could have met her five years even prior. What had happened? Where was I? What was I to do? The panic and disorientation started claiming me once more, but through sheer will I pushed them down. I could not afford to make any mistakes. Not one.

“I had lost my corporeal form,” I said, hoping against hope that she did not know enough about my seidr. “I could not establish contact with anyone. It took me five years to create my body anew.”

“So how did you manage it?”

Norns, blast this infernal woman into the poisoned waters of Niflheim!

Usually, I would have enjoyed creating these stories and mixing half-lies with half-truths to serve my purposes, or just for the sake of seeing how far I could stretch this, but all I felt now was frustration and fear.

“Darling,” I said weakly. “I am famished… I am afraid I cannot –”

“Oh, god!” She leapt up to her feet. “I’m so sorry! Yes, of course!”

She raced out of the room, leaving me in silence for a few minutes. I was too tired to play games right now. I needed food, I needed rest and I needed my seidr to replenish itself. Without the physical and mental strength, I would be taking unnecessary risks by trying to navigate through this fiasco. I was in the safest place I could possibly be – apparently, I was in the future.

But if I were in the future, then how was I dead?

My head hurt, so I forced myself to not dwell over that. Eat. Rest. Replenish. That is what I repeated to myself. The woman came flying out after a while, her arms overflowing with articles of food. She handed me some fruits, something that passed for bread and a bowl with some soup. I ate it all gratefully. When was the last time I had had a proper meal? The food was hardly anything remarkable, but it stood in stark contrast to the unsavoury, repugnant gruel that had been dished out to me for the past year, which made this food now taste all the more fulfilling.

It was going to be fine. I was going to be able to plot and scheme – and fight, if need be – my way out of this as always. I had no reason to doubt in my abilities. Be they combat or be they playing the enemy’s game, I had always been one step ahead, and my year in exile had only hardened whatever soft edges had remained. I was a Prince of Asgard, the rightful King of Jotunheim, the Invader of Midgard and a god in exile. I was Loki and I would survive this as I have survived everything else.

After I had finished my meal, I spoke before the woman could grate me with her questions. “Darling, I am in desperate need of rest.”

“Can you climb the stairs?” she asked.

“I think so.”

She walked right at my side, there to support me were I to fall. It was a futile exercise, for my weight would crush her if I collapsed, but I did not comment on it. I found it difficult to walk, but I played up my struggles to make her believe I was truly weak. It would keep her questions at bay for longer and give her the false sense of power over me, both of which I would successfully exploit later.

She ushered me into the bedchamber. I watched her reaction out of the corner of the eye. Her eyes took in the open window and the bed in disarray, but she commented nothing. I let her guide me to the bed and lay me down. I did not want to be sharing a bed with her, but I could raise no protest. I noted with edge that the bed was sturdy enough to support the weight of an Asgardian. She settled at my feet and began unbuckling my shoes. She frowned at the muck that had accumulated, but said nothing. I noted again, with displeasure, that she was deft with unfastening the buckles of my armour. She had finished working on one shoe and started tending to the other when she looked up.

“Why are you in this armour?”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You haven’t worn this armour in ages.”

My jaw clenched. “Well, I did not have much choice when I was finding a means to reconstruct my body and get back to Midgard, did I? It was either this or be naked.”

She smiled and I wanted to slap that smile off her face. “Hmmm, I suppose.” She was almost done with the other shoe when she said, “But, you said you’d discarded this armour.”

I looked at her warily. “Perhaps you are mistaken.”

She frowned. “I remember we had a long discussion when I was –”

“It has been a long five years, darling, and a long night for both of us,” I said pointedly.

She looked at me oddly, her lips parted as she ruminated over my words. “Yes, it has.” She took off the shoe and flung it next to its partner. “How did you come here?”

I inhaled. “I used my seidr to feel for you.”

Her brows furrowed. “You were there when I came back home.”

“Yes, I was.”

Her frown deepened. “I ran towards you… I think. I said your name, but suddenly I fell. I saw a green light. What happened?”

“I was very weak, darling. I could not control my seidr very well for I was so elated at seeing you.”

“Yes, but then, I fell unconscious. And then I woke up and you were…”

“Tending to you.”

“Yes, but then…” she trailed off and looked to her side.

Slowly, ever so slowly, her eyes travelled back to mine, bewilderment and terror clouding her eyes. “What are you doing with the Tesseract?”

The time for vague phrases and careful lies were over. I lunged upright once more, but she was quicker. She was able to get to her feet, but before she could put some distance between us, I crawled forward and yanked her down to the bed by her hair. The air escaped her chest as she roughly collided with the bed and I flung a leg over her. That roused her out of her daze, for she pulled her knee up and brought it up against my groin with a cry.

I yelped in pain and surprise as she tried to slither away on her back. With a snarl, I caught the hem of her dress and brusquely pulled her with it. There was a ripping sound, but it did not tear. Once she was close, I grabbed her by the neck of her dress and pushed her against the pillows. She screamed as I settled on top of her. I dove for her hands but she clawed at my face. I grunted in pain and squeezed her wrists hard enough for her to feel it in the bone and pushed them down by the side of her head. She flailed like a woman possessed and almost toppled me and I collided my knee with her groin.

She shrieked and I thought I had the upper hand, but then I felt her digging her knees into my lower back to shake me off once more. With a snarl of murderous rage, I raised my arm and swung the back of her hand against her cheek. She started crying once more, but this time, stopped moving for good.

I brought my lips down to her ear and whispered, “Listen to me, wench, and listen to me well. I do not know what hallucinations you have dreamt or what sorcery you have conjured, but I am not the man you think I am. I am not your lover. I will not hesitate to kill you. I will not hesitate to hit you and hurt you. So be very, very careful about what you do and what you say, for I assure you, there is nothing I would like more than to introduce you to the most excruciating torture should you do anything to compromise me.”

Between her sobs, she managed to ask, “Loki, what are you -”

“Shut up!”

I climbed off her disgustedly and went around the room to secure it. There was not much I could add to its defences, but I had to find a way to restrain her. I was too weak to open my dimensional pockets, so I did the next best thing: I detached the belt joining the two fragments of my surcoat and climbed back to the bed with it in hand.

She tried to wriggle away but I pulled her back by her hair, ripping some strands along the way, and hissed, “You can either sleep on the bed like a human or on the floor like a filthy animal. Choose.” When she continued to cry, I shouted, “I said choose!”

“Bed!” she wailed.

“Smart choice.” I secured her hands in the belt to the bedpost and shoved her away to the edge. “Remember: I need but the slightest excuse to rip you apart nail by nail, vein by vein, bone by bone.”

She was still quietly sobbing when I fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I gave Nat a funeral because as much as I liked her death, they did her dirty with the funeral. For your reference, a red in the ledger marks a loss. A black indicates a profit, which is why all the messages in the ledger are written in black :)
> 
> Something that I have no idea how to get around: Reader's family. I don't want to mention what, if any, family of hers exists and/or has come back from the snap for maximum reader immersion. That is why I've made the funeral a few weeks after the "anti-snap", so that she had that time to take care of them, if they do exist. 
> 
> Please leave a comment if you liked! Constructive feedback is always welcome =)


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